The metallic gold skin of the sleek, battleship-sized hull shimmers at them like a highly polished mirror.

Mick clutches her hand and ascends, pulling her toward two colossal assemblies mounted along either side of what appears to be the vessel’s tail section. Each structure is as large and as high as a three-story building. Swimming closer, they peer inside one of the alien engines, their flashlights revealing a wasp’s nest of charred, afterburner-shaped housings, each orifice no less than thirty feet in diameter.

Mick tows her past the monstrous engine mounts and swims toward the bow of the geologically camouflaged vessel.

Dominique sucks harder at the regulator, alarmed at her inability to draw a breath. Oh, God, we’re out of air! She tugs at Mick’s arm, clutching her throat, as the cavern begins spinning out of control.

Mick sees Dominique’s face turn bright red. He feels his own chest constricting, his lungs aching as she grabs for him.

Avoiding her grasp, he spits out her spare regulator, returning his own to his mouth. Then he turns and swims as hard as he can, dragging her by the towrope as he searches the hull for some kind of entry.

Dominique thrashes about, petrified, as she suffocates within her fogging mask.

Mick’s arms and legs feel like lead. He wheezes into his regulator, unable to draw a breath, his lungs on fire. He registers the girl panicking at the end of the rope, his heart aching, his mind fighting to focus.

In his delirium he sees it: a crimson beacon, glowing fifty yards ahead. With renewed vigor he strokes and kicks, his muscles burning, moving in slow motion.

He registers the deadweight on the end of the rope—Dominique no longer struggling.

Don’t stop …

The subterranean world is spinning out of control. He bites down on the regulator until his gums bleed, sucking in the warm liquid as the glowing icon of the Trident of Paracas comes into view.

Another dozen strokes …

His arms are lead. He stops moving. The ebony eyes roll upward.

Michael Gabriel blacks out.

The bodies of the two unconscious divers drift toward the glowing, ten-foot-wide iridium panel, triggering an ancient motion detector.

With a hydraulic hiss, the outer hull’s portal door slides open. A current of water rushes into the pressurized compartment, sucking the two humans into the alien vessel.

JOURNAL OF

JULIUS GABRIEL

What a pitiful creature is man; born with an acute awareness of his own mortality—he is thus condemned to live out his puny existence in fear of the unknown. Driven by ambition, he often wastes what precious moments he possesses. Forsaking others, he overindulges his egotistical ventures in the pursuit of fame and fortune, allowing evil to seduce him into reaping misery upon those he truly loves; his life, so fragile, always teetering on the brink of a death he was not blessed with the ability to comprehend.